Hot cross bunnies (fail)

Easter calls for freshly baked hot cross buns and this year i tried adding a little twist. It was semi successful.....

With visitors coming for easter and being unsure if they ate traditional hot cross buns i decided to split the batch and make half traditional and half chocolate hot x buns. Then for a little fun i thought i'd make a few of them bunny shaped like the many you see going around pinterest and facebook sometimes.

Ah aren't they cute! Unfortunately mine weren't all that successful and came out looking a little more hamster like. lol.

Hahaha that's even funnier in a picture! I won't be giving up my day job yet. On the up side they were super yum! With big chunks of chocolate and just a little spice.

On the other side of things the hot cross buns came out great. This is my go-to recipe if you feel like trying some this weekend.

Hot cross buns

Preparation time 3 hours

Cooking time 20-25 minutes

Ingredients

1½ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 cup warm milk

100 grams butter, softened

2 eggs

4 cups high grade flour

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon each ground allspice, mixed spice, cinnamon and nutmeg

¼ cup brown sugar

1 cup raisins

milk or egg wash to glaze

Method

Stir the yeast and milk together and set aside in a warm place for 15 minutes or until the mixture is frothy.

Beat softened butter and eggs into the frothy mixture.

Put the flour, salt, spices and brown sugar into a food processor and pulse to sift.

Pour the yeast mixture into the flour mixture mixing until it forms a soft dough. 

Process for 1 more minute.

Add the dried fruit and pulse to just mix.

Turn the dough into a greased bowl, turn over and cover with greased plastic wrap. 

Set aside in a warm place for about 1 hour until the dough has doubled in size

Divide into 12-14 pieces roll into a ball and place on a tray, put them about 1cm apart. I like to put them in a round tin.

Cover with a tea towel and set aside for 30 mins.

Preheat the oven to 190 ºC.

Brush the buns with milk or egg wash to glaze. Pipe thin crosses onto the buns with the cross paste.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

I don't usually bother with the crosses but if you want to add them

Cross paste

½ cup flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 tablespoon butter

about ¼ cup milk

For chocolate buns - omit the spices and raisins from the above recipe and add in 1 t cinnamon, 1 T cocoa and 1/2 -1 C chocolate drops.